Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1887-07-07
LET US FEED OURSELVES.

1t is little less than disgrace that in
Newton, city in the midst of what ev.
cry Kansas man has declared for fifteen
years to be the finest agricultural and
horticultural region of the state, vegeta.
bles and small fruits should be scarce,
dear, poor in quality, and generally i'm,
ported from distance The fact argues
either that the soil is not what it has
been represented, or that we have lazy
and Inefficient set of farmers and no gar
deners at all; or that no inducements are
held out towards the cultivation of what
may be called the necessities of life.
Whatever the cause, the effect should
be removed. Every town in the midst of
an agricultural region ought to draw
from the surrounding country enough of
the products of the soil for its own use,
and, more, every town as large af New
ton and with it's railroad facilities ought
to be shipping point for such produc-
tons; not of grain merely, but everything
that grows out of the ground.
The city of Newton ought in the sea-
son. to load trains of cars with vegeta-
bles fruits, butter, eggs, and everything
| that in the temperate zone is, as children
say, good to eat.' 1t ought to manufac-
ture from the raw material canned fruits,
dried fruits, jellies and so on. Parties
go around asking enormous bonuses in
return for the establishment of canning
factories. The truth is, that there is no
industry of the same magnitude that en-
ploys simpler or cheaper material than a
canning factory. Nearly or quite all re-
quired could be made here in Newton,
and there are thousands of experienced
men who could be got to run the institu-
ton.
The reason we neglect to raise our own
food, and send off for it as if this was a
mining camp, is because Kansas just now
is afflicted with what is called in an in
dividual ''bighead." A Kansas farmer
does not wish to do anything ION the
small" He wants the earth for farm,
and all the agricultural machinery in ex-
istence to cultivate it. He had sooner
sow section in wheat for the chinch
bus to eat than to work a garden and
raise something to eat himself In town
the same disposition is manifest. Any
enterprise that does not require an issue
of 500, 900 in bonds is too small to think
about. Towns are talking up and voting
bonds for water works, that really need a
town pump and sprinkling cart, and are
revising plans of sewerage system, mod
eled on that of Paris, which should first
secure a dump cart, and shovel with a
stout cOlOred man attached, to go around
and clean up the filth. 1t is these exalted
and expensive views which, just now,
instead of booming" many Kansas
town, are hindering its safe and sure de-
velOpment.
Kansas is an agricultural country and
pastoral country, and it is never going to
be anything else. The deep coal vein
and natural gas booms in western
Kansas, at least, are a delusion and
snare. The richest of Kansas do not lie
1900 feet under ground, they lie within
two feet of the surface The manufac-
tories to be developed first are those con-
nected with agriculture. First raise
enough to eat. Don't sit down among
the sunflowers and send two hundred
miles for an onion or strawberry.
Then, when you can feed yourselves,
raise something to ship. Turn your hogs
into packed pork; your cattle into dried
or canned beef; your corn, peas etc, and
fruit into canned goods; your milk into
cheese, butter and concentrated milk, and
so on through the list.-Newton Republi-
ran